PFC Bradley Manning: I hate this guy

First, I will admit, I got bitch-slapped for wearing an anti-Clinton pin while serving time for "other offenses."

Now that that's out of the way, WTF? Manning pleaded guilty to 10 of the 22 counts against him. Stated another way, I would never have intentionally done something against my country; Manning did so purposefully. First Amendment is great, but if you're entering a contract intent on violating it, you are scum. Period. End of story.

I don't think Manning's intentions were honorable. Regardless of what "evils," he exposed, he put Americans' lives at risk. We can argue about whistle-blower's doctrine all day (and gay rights the day after); he took it upon himself to controvert standing orders, and to violate the spirit of voluntary service.

I totally get where you're coming from. However I'm of two minds about this thing.

On one side, I want to see him locked away forever for what he did. On the other, I can totally see what he may have been trying to do.

A little background: when I was in the military I was a 97B (now 35L?). Part of my job was to investigate things like this. There wasn't much of note during my time in, I only participated in a handful of investigations during my five and a half years in service but there's a very good chance that I know some of the agents involved in this investigation, but it isn't like I've talked to them about it. I've been out for a while now and my clearance has lapsed. Even if it hadn't, I wouldn't have any need to know about that particular investigation. But much of the point of our training was to get us to think like spies either to catch them or, in a deployed environment, recruit them.

Do I think Manning did the right thing? No, I don't. The same thing could have been accomplished with unclassified information just getting passed around on the NIPRnet. Soldiers were videotaping every stupid thing they did in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also, even if you have a good background in intelligence it's hard to keep track of what can be used. As I used to tell people when I was giving SAEDA briefings to the tune of twice a week, "I don't care what MOS you are or what you do for the Army. You have something I could use if I wanted to hurt soldiers." Then I'd ask people their MOS and tell them exactly what the knew that I could use. My favorite was when I got a Shower/Laundry Specialist and he referred to himself as a "**** shoveler". I told him that if he told me about how much crap he shoveled in a day I could, given a little time, figure out the troop strength and general level of health on a given base. It was a good schtick and you could see them really stop and think about what someone could find out from them that could get their buddies killed. Basic OpSec stuff. As far as I can tell, Manning did his best to release things that weren't likely to directly threaten other American lives, however it's very hard to tell sometimes what information will be useful in the larger intelligence picture.

I think you're also somewhat right about his motives. In a lot of ways he was a little man motivated by revenge. However, he had access to things that were FAR more damaging than some diplomatic cables and cockpit footage. Like intelligence reports that revealed methods or source information, for example. While names are removed and the source is identified once by number and then as SOURCE in the rest of the report, if you have three or four of them it wouldn't be hard to extrapolate who this source is by what they have access to. Then you wait to pop their handlers and leave their bodies in the street. So he also wanted revenge, but he still cared on some level about his "battle buddies", otherwise he would have made major bank or done real damage rather than what he did, which was very idealistic. (Not an uncommon motivation for spies at all, to be honest.) There's a reasonable chance that he duped himself into believing his actions were not motivated by revenge but rather by altruism, however I think he was fully aware that both of those factors were driving him.

I will totally disagree with you about whether or not his actions were courageous, though. He did what he either believed or had convinced himself he believed was right regardless of the consequences. That is essentially the definition of courage, whether he was right or wrong to do what he did.

I'd say it does take some balls to risk prison and torture for what you think is right (although it can be argued that this guy just didn't know what risk he was taking). Still, if you are serving a country and swore an oath to certain values - and then see that those values are violated in the most extreme ways, it is your duty to do everything possible to end this.

Less abstract: those guys who tortured, killed and raped civillians were the true traitors to much of what the USA and its army once stood for (human rights, democracy, freedom and all those other fancy words). Add to that that Manning was young and probably naive at that time, his actions become understandable.

Punishing Manning on the other hand is just a case of killing the messenger (after a few years of needless torture, that is).

Edit: the fact that some US-Personnel were possibly endagered by the way of publication (which could be an argument against Manning) was not really Mannings responsibility, but happened because of the incompetence of Wikileaks.

I'd say it does take some balls to risk prison and torture for what you think is right (although it can be argued that this guy just didn't know what risk he was taking). Still, if you are serving a country and swore an oath to certain values - and then see that those values are violated in the most extreme ways, it is your duty to do everything possible to end this.

Less abstract: those guys who tortured, killed and raped civillians were the true traitors to all that the USA once stood for (and was admired for in the whole western world).
Punishing Manning on the other hand is just a case of killing the messenger (after a few years of needless torture, that is).

Edit: the fact that some US-Personnel were possibly endagered by the way of publication (which could be an argument against Manning) was not really Mannings responsibility, but happened because of the incompetence of Wikileaks.

I would venture that none of us, here, are informed enough to say whether or not Manning's disclosures resulted in lives lost or life-threatening damage. I'll stipulate that there has probably not been any catastrophic loss - yet - because I believe authorities would be swift to declassify such knowledge to ensure maximum penalty.

Regardless, how many millions or billions of dollars were lost developing and protecting the information that Manning released? Would you be so quick to equivocate the theft of only a few million dollars from a major bank?

Any classified information that Manning gave to Wikileaks was his responsibility and his alone. If Wikileaks had chosen not to publish those things (and, to their minute credit, they have withheld and redacted stuff), then you could say that Wikileaks was being courageous, which wouldn't be as much of a stretch as assigning the attribute to Manning.

I see this degrading into a "if it wasn't Manning, it would have been somebody else," argument - that doesn't make Manning any less wrong, nor the hypothetical spy any more right.

I would venture that none of us, here, are informed enough to say whether or not Manning's disclosures resulted in lives lost or life-threatening damage. I'll stipulate that there has probably not been any catastrophic loss - yet - because I believe authorities would be swift to declassify such knowledge to ensure maximum penalty.

Regardless, how many millions or billions of dollars were lost developing and protecting the information that Manning released? Would you be so quick to equivocate the theft of only a few million dollars from a major bank?

Sure. He supposedly broke a law, so he has to be punished by the law in due process and a judge or a jury has to decide if the result of his actions were justified.

But that is not happening. His lawyers have no access to important files, his imprisonment has been under conditions which one would expect in countries of the so called third world.

So juristically, this whole case is bogus.

On the other hand, it seems to be the common narrative that Bradley Manning is that evil person who stabbed his fellow soldiers in the back and endagered the whole war-operations (which may or may not be true) - and that because of that, he deserved every bit of torture and unfair treatment and that everyone who demands a fair trial and simple democratic standards is just a naive *****.

And that is most likely not true. Furthermore, it sets a precedent which can be misused even more.

Sure. He supposedly broke a law, so he has to be punished by the law in due process and a judge or a jury has to decide if the result of his actions were justified.

But that is not happening. His lawyers have no access to important files, his imprisonment has been under conditions which one would expect in countries of the so called third world.

So juristically, this whole case is bogus.

On the other hand, it seems to be the common narrative that Bradley Manning is that evil person who stabbed his fellow soldiers in the back and endagered the whole war-operations (which may or may not be true) - and that because of that, he deserved every bit of torture and unfair treatment and that everyone who demands a fair trial and simple democratic standards is just a naive *****.

And that is most likely not true. Furthermore, it sets a precedent which can be misused even more.

He is an admitted criminal, or have we lost sight of that?

From a jurisprudence perspective, he's still under military rules - civilian courts may come later, assuming he doesn't serve a life sentence.